Thursday, May 2, 2013

Jihad Story of the Day: Pope Francis set to commit "Islamophobia"

This is not going to be good for the wonderful "dialogue" that is clearly accomplishing so very much. Remember the words of Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester last February: "My decision to ask Mr. Spencer not to speak at the Men’s Conference resulted from a concern voiced by members of the Islamic community in Massachusetts, a concern that I came to share. That concern was that Mr. Spencer’s talk about extreme, militant Islamists and the atrocities that they have perpetrated globally might undercut the positive achievements that we Catholics have attained in our inter-religious dialogue with devout Muslims and possibly generate suspicion and even fear of people who practice piously the religion of Islam."

So if the Pope highlights (as this canonization will, however indirectly) "extreme, militant Islamists and the atrocities that they have perpetrated" in Italy in 1480, will that "undercut the positive achievements that we Catholics have attained in our inter-religious dialogue with devout Muslims" in the Boston area, which are indeed such very great achievements, as we saw at the Boston Marathon?

If Pope Francis wants to come to Worcester, will McManus bar him out of concern that his visit "might undercut the positive achievements that we Catholics have attained in our inter-religious dialogue with devout Muslims and possibly generate suspicion and even fear of people who practice piously the religion of Islam"?

"Pope Francis to canonize 800 Italians slain during historic siege," by Carol Glatz for the Catholic Herald, April 30 (thanks to Tom):

Pope Francis is preparing to canonize an estimated 800 Italian laymen killed by Ottoman soldiers in the 15th century. The canonization service will be on May 12 in St Peter’s Square and it will be the first carried out by the Pontiff since he was elected in early March.

The killing of the martyrs by Ottoman troops, who launched a weeks-long siege of Otranto, a small port town at the most eastern tip of southern Italy, took place in 1480.
When Otranto residents refused to surrender to the Ottoman army, the soldiers were ordered to massacre all males over the age of 15. Many were ordered to convert to Islam or die, but Blessed Antonio Primaldo, a tailor, spoke on the prisoners’ behalf. “We believe in Jesus Christ, Son of God, and for Jesus Christ we are ready to die,” he said, according to Blessed John Paul II, who visited Otranto in 1980 for the 500th anniversary of the martyrs’ deaths.

Primaldo inspired all the other townspeople to take courage, the late Pope said, and to say: “We will all die for Jesus Christ; we willingly die so as to not renounce his holy faith.” There were not “deluded” or “outdated,” Blessed John Paul continued, but “authentic, strong, decisive, consistent men” who loved their city, their families and their faith.

The skulls and other relics of the martyrs currently adorn the walls around the altar of Otranto Cathedral as a memorial to their sacrifice. According to the archdiocese’s website, popular tradition holds that when the soldiers beheaded Primaldo, his body remained standing even as the combatants tried to push him over. Legend has it that the decapitated man stood until the very last prisoner was killed, at which point Primaldo’s body collapsed next to his dead comrades....

In a letter published in December 2012, Archbishop Donato Negro of Otranto said that the martydom of the townnsfolk [sic] must represent a “purification of the memory of the Catholic Church and a rooting out of every possible lingering resentment, rancor, resentful policies, every eventual temptation toward hatred and violence, and every presumptuous attitude of religious superiority, religious arrogance, moral and cultural pride.”